Town officials last week upheld a $30 ticket issued to a local retail shop worker who overstayed in a Main Street parking space. The Parking Commission voted 4-0 to uphold the ticket that had been issued to Vanessa Brown. During an appeal hearing at the appointed body’s regular meeting, Brown said that she parked on Main Street after dropping off her child and intended on moving the car but got there just 15 minutes too late.
Brown told the Commission that it was raining out on the Monday morning in question and that overstaying in the space “was not intentional.”
“I had to run into work to open the store and then I was going to move my car at the appropriate time and then got stuck with a customer,” Brown said at the Dec. 1 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. During the appeal hearing, commissioners asked whether Brown was working at the time the ticket was issued (yes), how far away from Main Street she works (at The Linen Shop on Elm Street, so not far), whether she always parks on the street (not always), whether she knows about the free parking permits in the Center and Locust Lots that are available for downtown workers (yes but it’s hard to get one from the business owner and a bit of a hike to the store),
Commissioner Katie O’Neill said, “On behalf of merchants I will only add that taking customers’ parking is frowned upon.”
Brown responded that she understood, though some Main Street merchants park on the street “all day without getting a ticket.”
O’Neill said, “They should not be tolerating it from each other, especially implementing our new parking initiatives….
